The door opened, and Archie came back carrying bottles of water. “So what did we vote on?”
Jake raised his brows at me. A part of me kind of just wanted to stay here and hide, but it wasn’t like I was really hiding. Half of bad meatloaf lived here.
“We’re gonna go back to his place and do homework, then probably go out and do…” I had no idea what we were going to do.
“Cool,” Archie said, handing over the water bottles. “You don’t have to leave to do homework though. We could—make a big study group right here.” At Jake’s dark look, Archie held up his hands. “I said study, that doesn’t mean I’m inviting myself along on whatever your date is.”
Slanting a look at me, Jake said, “Up to Frankie. I can stay here, my crap is down in the car. I never took it out on Friday.”
“I’m sorry about your game,” I said abruptly. It had been canceled, and then Archie and I hadn’t picked up our phones.
“No biggie,” he said, still holding my hand. “Bubba and I dragged Coop out to a movie.”
“What did you see?” None of them had mentioned that, and Jake gave me a blank look.
“When you went out to a movie, dude,” Archie supplied.
“I dunno—that thing with the robots. It was—bad. We left about halfway through it.”
“So, maybe we don’t go see that tonight?” I kind of wanted him to smile, particularly because I was bringing everyone down and we could cut the awkwardness in the room with a knife. Or maybe that was me.
“Well, if we did see it tonight, we wouldn’t miss anything by making out all the way through it.” A glint flashed in Jake’s eyes.
Heat flooded my face, even as I grinned. Archie snorted. “You don’t need to go to see a bad movie to make out.”
“I dunno, Frankie said she wanted the dating experiences. Making out in a movie theater is on that list.”
“Wait—there’s a list?” I eyed them. “Is that what rule number two is?” That little tidbit had come up when he’d been on the phone, but I had been way too distracted to latch onto it for long.
“There’s probably a dating list somewhere,” Archie commented, cracking his water bottle open. He nodded to mine and said, “Check Buzzfeed? And do you want me to open that?”
“I got it.” Jake lifted my bottle and twisted it open. “Arch is right. Check Buzzfeed or just do an internet search.”
“Though, I’m surprised at you, Frankie—you don’t have a list of your own?”
I knew they were teasing and it was funny, but my face caught fire. It had been warm earlier, but it was scorching now. “I make a lot of lists.”
“So you made a dating one?” Jake poked me. “Are you holding out on us?”
“Well… no. I never wrote it down, specifically.”
“But you have a list,” Archie challenged, eyebrows raised. “Are we supposed to guess what’s on it? Is that how we pass or fail?”
“I’m not grading you,” I protested. Good grief. I’d wanted to make Jake smile, not encourage them to gang up on me.
“But you’re not telling us what’s on the list, so we’re flying blind here.” Jake had let go of my hand to open the water bottle, and I dug out my phone and took a long swig of water before googling ten best date ideas for teens and ignored Jake’s snort. “She’s looking it up.”
“Of course, she is. She always does her homework…”
I flipped Archie off, it was automatic. “Right now, I’m doing your homework.”
“Well, you do his homework, too.” Jake bumped my shoulder, and I laughed. Because it was true.
“Not just mine,” Archie argued.
“Ha,” Jake retorted.
I clicked the first website and read off the list.